Precipitation
by Moiranne Rose
Summary: Challenge 30/51 /Request Fic from Cornelialovecaleb: Rain falls, keeping everyone indoors. Except two people who decide to brave the rain to make sure they keep to the schedule. Short, nope. Ambiguous, I guess. Angst? For once, maybe not.


**Challenge Fic Topic/Prompt (realized that this is probably more widely accepted than "topic"): That's all you have to say.**

**Title: Precipitation**

**Summary: ****Rain falls, keeping everyone indoors. Except two people who decide to brave the rain to make sure they keep to the schedule. Short, nope. Ambiguous, I guess. Angst? For once, maybe not.**

* * *

Genesis Rhapsodos was no man to keep to time. Yet there were days that he needed to get to somewhere, and fast. While he hated routine, there was still a thin web of rules that kept him from complete freedom. At the moment, he needed to get to Lazard's office. And fast at that. There was a deadline, and unlike with Angeal, the other 1sts or even Sephiroth, the Director was not to be meddled with. Especially when he held the ultimate say in your salary, which was a big issue in itself.

Rain beat a rhythm on the windows. He cursed inwardly the fact that the Director's office was in the next block, virtually inaccessible to the west quarters. But since this was no time to be complaining, with three minutes left to no monthly payment, he decided to go on his way, even if it meant pushing through the rain.

* * *

Cissnei looked at the time and gaped. Then she looked out of the window, and gaped more, if it was possible. She needed to get to the helipad, situated very 'conveniently' on top of the west wing of quarters, where a helicopter would be picking her up to bring her to her next mission. If the helicopter came, and she was not there, she'd have the consequences to deal with for months (a non-existent paycheck, an irate Tseng, an irate President, etc.).

So she resolved, through the rain she would go, as she picked up Rekka to bring along with her. Running her hand over the blade of her beloved shuriken, she opened the door leading out of the empty Turk office, and walked towards the elevators.

* * *

Genesis was tentative in the first step into the rain, somehow, though he knew that, as a SOLDIER, there was no reason to fear rain, albeit water from the sky, yet the chill that crept through his coat and into his joints was enough to be feared. Yet after the first few steps, and a look up to see the long path that stretched towards the main building of ShinRa, he realized the long walk that would more than encompass those few minutes he had left. He began to run, and in the running, something else took hold of his mind.

_"Gen! Oi, Gen!"_

_He turned to see a boy, hardly into adolescence, run up towards him. Black cropped hair stuck to his skull with rainwater, his clothes were all soaked, and the puddle he kicked up as he neared the motionless redhead was enough to soak the latter's clothes fully._

_"Angeal!"_

_Laughter ensued as the two wrestled for domination and the ultimate soaking of the other as they tumbled among the mud and water, summer rain drenching them completely through._

Genesis smiled at the memory, remembering those days was becoming an increasingly harder task. At least in the rain, even when you were running-walking towards a possible mission, with the threat of death very near to cutting off your head, he had enough privacy and peace to reminisce.

* * *

Cissnei had no fear of the rain. It was nothing. Sure the chill was bad, but nothing a trained, _professional_ Turk couldn't handle. She carefully picked her way around the puddles, trying to avoid wetting her standard-issue Turk suit and the risk of rust on Rekka. Her hair soon became slicked back by the rain, drenched locks stuck irritatingly to her forehead, half-obscuring her vision.

Flicking them restlessly, her progress towards her destination refused to be hampered by the increasing sogginess of her shoes and the squelch of the mud. Didn't ShinRa have enough funds for at least a footpath? At that point, she had to remind herself that most of it was spent on the son, Rufus. Even though he was a spoilt brat of a boy (not an adult by any chance), she somehow felt towards him, the feelings she could only attribute to what she knew to be sibling care. Her life had been one of experimentation and laboratories. So she needed all the family she could get from this place, even if it was a fifteen-year-old male sapping most of the finances that should be going into your paycheck.

She went on running, while perfectly balancing Rekka on her shoulder and mind racing through the mission briefings that had filled her days for a week.

* * *

Note: There is no actual POV here

The two red-haired, hard-trained, battle-worn, daring-death ShinRa operatives collided.

Maybe it was not as spectacular as if it was meant for a pair of actor and actress (blonde and blue-eyed of course), who'd been playing characters who would have been searching for their soulmate all their lives, not two starstruck lovers who realised their dreams only once they'd hit into the other; nothing like the sickly sweet endings of silly plays. It was a mistake, that resulted, not in any uncalled-for romantic interlude, but in angry looks and annoyance playing in eyes, and staring, and rain beating down and down.

There was rust waiting to happen on Rekka, mission reports that soaked themselves in muddy puddles. There was suits that soaked and darkened, mud caked around the ankles. This was not a meeting that would be forgotten, but neither would it be one that would not be remembered, whether it was for sentimentality, or for the cause of a drop in gil salary.

Sure, the meeting cut off memories that had been so hard to recall, killed any chance of making it to anywhere on time, slashed apart any hopes of the day ever being anything other than a disaster.

Then again, it still, in time, brought two people, from wildly different backgrounds, two warring departments in a world of scrabbling hands for promotions and favour in the eyes of the (corrupted) President, with opposite interests and irrational hatreds, together.

That's all you have to say, and that's all you _can_ say, if you want to explain why, two redheads meet every raining day, under the precipitation, just to stand in a certain gap between two buildings that really, _really,_ should have a connecting, sheltered bridge between them.

* * *

**A/N: Well, dedicated to Cornelialovecaleb for requesting this.**

**And this is my first time with Cissnei/Genesis, but they're a nice couple (cos they're redheads!!) Sorry for the fangirling.**

**Off to listening to Nickelback and studying for French Exams!**

**Moiranne Rose**

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End file.
